Notes on The Well Educated Mind Chapter Six
I love autobiographies and memoirs. It's probably the genre I go to first when seeking out something new or serendipitous
Beginnings in the Middle Ages
I just learned two things. First, Augustine was from Africa. Second, he was the first autobiographer. [1]
Autobiographies are not an objective narrative of the past. Instead, they are colored by the perspective of the author. Like an author, an autobiographer arranges plot points to form a narrative that reaches a conclusion.
Augustine's other innovations:
Selects only parts of his life that fit the overall story he was trying to tell about his life.
“Unlike earlier writers, Augustine sees decisions and thoughts, not big external events, as the true landmarks of a life”
Put his private self at the center of the story.
Single point of his life as a pivot. [2]
“Choosing a meaning for the past, relating all else to it, describing the inner life of the private self, finding that “watershed” event of the past that made the self what it is today: all of these become, after Augustine, the conventions of the autobiography."
Many "confessional" autobiographies examining the author's (a sinner) relationship with God.
The Enlightenment
Start to move away from writing about the idea of man as sinner to the idea of man as human.
Cool to know the glass mirror was invented in this time. It ties nicely with the idea of increasing self reflection.
The focus changes from journey to holiness to journey of self-knowledge. The idea of the autonomous self...
“The reality of this free, autonomous being depends only on—well, on itself”
There is a thread of doubt and skepticism in the autobiographies of this time. But, the stories are still meant to serve as an example to others who are examining their own lives.
“Here is the meaning I chose for my life. I discovered that my elusive self was a thinking being. Might this be a meaning that you too could choose?”
Spiritual autobiographies did not go away though. Still very popular.
Autobiographical Criticism
While autobiographers may not intentionally follow schools of writing styles, they still follow certain conventions.
Post World War II, in the 1950's, autobiography became "a subject of critical inquiry". Influences - trauma of the war, Sigmund Freud and the idea of the subconscious.
“Painting myself for others, I have painted myself with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me.” - Montaigne [3]
Autobiography has genres
- Two types spiritual and skeptical
- Women
Women and men think about themselves differently. Men had the model of the epic hero. Women, often uneducated, had the model of domestic fulfillment.
“The spiritual autobiographies of women dealt not with an active grappling with sin, but the difficulties of passive submission to the male God.”
- Black autobiography
“African American autobiographers found themselves copying the forms practiced by whites, even when those forms didn’t suit the shape of their lives.”
There is a point in a black biography when the author starts seeing themself in the frame of their "blackness".
Early black autobiographies also had the convention of discussing their conversion to literacy.
Veracity, Truth, Fact
Postmodernism allowed for the idea that multiple versions of events could all be true because of the perspective of the narrator.
“You no longer read an autobiography to find out the truth about past events (an assumption that governed the memoirs of political retirees for decades). Rather, you read autobiography to find out what it’s like to see the world from another point of view”
How to read an autobiography
Grammar Stage
Simple question - "what happened?"
- central events of the writer's life (physical or mental)
- historical events at the time
- most important person in the author's life
Logic Stage
- Theme that ties the narrative together
- Spiritual or skeptical?
- What is the life's turning point?
- Apologies
- What is the model or ideal of this person's life?
- The author's "end" or resolution
Rhetoric Stage
- is the writer writing for himself or a group? Rare writers see themselves as unique and their life unreproducible
- What is universal to the writer? What is unique? What about from the author's perspective?
- moral judgement (be specific)
- time frames (when events happened, when author wrote the events, when reader is reading the events)
“Beware of chronological snobbery: People in the past were not more ignorant or less insightful than people today.”
- historical dimension, memory dimension, judgement dimension
- do you reach a different conclusion about the author's life?
- What's missing from the story?
Summary
The author describes types of autobiographies, the motivations of the authors, how autobiographical criticism evolved, and how to read them for depth and understanding.